Regional Scale Assessment of Shallow Groundwater Vulnerability to Contamination from Unconventional Hydrocarbon Extraction.

ABSTRACT: Concerns over unconventional oil and gas (UOG) development persist, especially in rural communities that rely on shallow groundwater for drinking and other domestic purposes. Given the continued expansion of the industry, regional (vs local scale) models are needed to characterize groundwater contamination risks faced by the increasing proportion of the population residing in areas that accommodate UOG extraction. In this paper, we evaluate groundwater vulnerability to contamination from surface spills and shallow subsurface leakage of UOG wells within a 104,000 km² region in the Appalachian Basin, northeastern USA. We test a computationally efficient ensemble approach for simulating groundwater flow and contaminant transport processes to quantify vulnerability with high resolut

SUBMITTER: Soriano MA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9454823 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature